


look me in the eyes and tell me im pretty

by mangophrogue



Series: banana fish fantasies of course [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ash goes to therapy, Cuddling & Snuggling, Everyone Is Alive, Falling In Love, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Therapy, disclaimer that i dont know how to write therapy, eiji goes too but its just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:26:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27460417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangophrogue/pseuds/mangophrogue
Summary: ash got stabbed, but an ambulance was called, eiji got to him in time. nobody was gonna leave ash to die because he thought he deserved it or any other reason. its all over now, and they're working through it.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Series: banana fish fantasies of course [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006305
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	look me in the eyes and tell me im pretty

Ash really doesn’t feel like getting up. This insinuated that he never had a problem getting up beforehand, which wasn’t exactly the truth, but today was a special case. Eiji, who was plastered on top of Ash, snoring softly, made the prospect of ‘waking up,’ absolutely unsatisfying. Alas, much to Ash’s dismay, Eiji began to stir,  
“Mmmn… Ash?” Soft, slightly raspy, cute- Ash felt the oh-so-familiar heart string pull.  
“Shhh… it’s early,” that caused Eiji to look up, eyes half closed and hair sticking up from multiple angles, the universe was truly so kind today. “Are you going to get up?” more for the selfish hope that the answer was ‘no.’ Eiji seemed to have thought about it, then plopped his head back into the crook of Ash’s neck and shaking his head, his hair tickled Ash’s jaw. It was almost dangerous, the amount of love he held for the man on top of him, the amount of dependence (a new concept for Ash,) that he had on Eiji. Ash would do anything for Eiji, and he has, thinking back to the times of almost losing him causes a pained expression he doesn’t notice. Well, he doesn’t notice until he feels the expression melt when Eiji sighs into his neck. These memories, the trauma built up from it, Ash really hated thinking about it as much as he did in these times, but it was something Eiji has convinced him to work out in therapy. Ash tried his best to dismiss the previous thoughts and focus on the here and now, and how Eiji is perfectly fine, they’re perfectly happy, and they’re safe in Japan.  
When Eiji does wake up, fully, he's up and out of bed in a flash, going on about how they need to have breakfast, about how important it is, and before Ash can pull him down again, Eiji is already out of the bedroom. So begrudgingly, Ash stands, and goes to cling some more to Eiji. Today was a clingy kind of day. Ash comes up behind Eiji and kisses the back of his neck. Eiji shivers, turns around, and lightly whacks Ash’s head.  
“You’re truly a cat aren’t you? You’re so quiet,” then Eiji laughs. Ash solidifies the obvious fact that he’s in deep… as fuck. Completely and utterly cliche, but god was it true. Or so he thought until Eiji brought his god-awful breakfast up to violate his nostrils. It’s natto, and rice. The worst crime against rice in history. Ash holds his nose, Eiji playfully smacks him again.  
“Why, or better, who decided that should exist? Isn’t breakfast supposed to be, I don’t know…good?”  
“You’re in Japan, breakfast is supposed to be filling, nobody eats sugar for breakfast, the exception being America, stupid,” Eiji flicks his head. Ash keeps getting bullied today, but he’s okay with it.  
“America has pancakes and other delicacies, Eiji.”  
“America has diabetes,” Eiji deadpans, this coaxes a snort from Ash. Glares really didn’t suit Eiji! It was like a hamster trying to intimidate you, Ash loved this, among other things. Eiji, cheeks heated and flushed, “Hey! Stop looking at me like that! I’m trying to win this argument!” Ash brushed their lips together, kept it swift enough to avoid the natto and rice atrocity and grab cereal from the cupboard without Eiji scolding him.  
Sitting across from each other at their little table, tv playing in the background for atmospheric purposes, the window they sit by showing the sun rising, casting shadows and silhouettes from the cityline. The morning was slow, but the day was bound to be busy. Ash had therapy and university to attend, Eiji had work and university as well. Speaking of therapy,  
“Eiji, when’s your next appointment with Dr. Maeda?” Ash needs to add it to his calendar. On days when either of them have therapy appointments, they have movie nights and get comfort food, Eiji’s idea. He called it self-care, Ash considers just being around Eiji to be self-care, but that added was also acceptable. This meant tonight was one of those nights, Ash couldn’t wait, even if getting there meant dealing with his feelings.  
“Next week,” Eiji pulled out his phone and showed Ash the screen, it showed the date, Ash mentally noted it. “What are you thinking for dinner?”  
Ash thought about it for a second, “Hmm, does Japan have Tex-Mex? I’m really feeling like having a white people taco night really…” Eiji tilted his head. Ash snickered, deciding to leave him confused, just for his entertainment values.  
“You’re so mean…”  
“You’re the one who keeps hitting me!”  
“I hardly even did anything to you!”  
When they go out the door and begin their days, Ash and Eiji walk to the train station to go to their university together. Ash is used to getting stared at on the train, and is aware of the pervs it can hold, Eiji glares at anybody who comes too close, kind of like a little chihuahua. It amuses Ash. When Ash has to go to his Japanese class first, Eiji has to go the opposite way, their separation is limited to a hug and a lingering hand hold. Japan is nice in multiple ways, but it isn’t as accepting as America is, Ash loathes that fact and how it doesn’t allow him to kiss his boyfriend goodbye.  
Eiji walks with Ash to therapy after school, while Ash deals with his feelings in a little office with a stranger (“They're there to help Ash, not a stranger,” Eiji always tells them, Ash just likes to dramatize it a bit,) Eiji walks to a nearby cafe and does his homework there, or sometimes in a park. Wherever he goes, he’s always back an hour and a half later when Ash walks out. They come up to the building now, Ash takes a deep breath and staggers there for a moment. Eiji rubs his back,  
“You’re going to do great, I’ll be down the street if you need anything, okay?” Ash nods. “Oh, and Ash? She’s there to help, remember that okay? With a goodbye hug from Eiji, and Ash walks in.  
Talking his feelings out has never been a strength of Ash’s. Taking his feelings out yes, but add an extra ‘L’ and suddenly it’s a foreign concept. His therapist, Jasmine Woods, is American as well, moved here when her husband was stationed on the military base in Japan, then they stayed after he retired. She’s in her mid 40s, has brown turning grey hair, and has a short and frail stature. Woods sits in front of him and crosses her legs while listening to him describe his day, nodding every now and then. He mentions that morning when his thoughts seemed to spiral, and how things always felt like they were “too good,” and that something bad was going to happen any minute now, that learned paranoia. She inhales and pauses for a moment, silence bleeds into his ears, then eventually, her voice, soft and like a concerned mother’s,  
“What do you feel when you ‘spiral’ like this? How do you deal with it?” Ash shrugs.  
“Feel nervous, like something or someone is watching me, like I have to be hypervigilant. I mostly go through the same self-destructive tendencies I always do, like wallowing in my own self pity, isolating myself, pushing people away? I don’t know.” Woods’ thoughts are pretty readable, her face reads the same ‘yeah, should’ve expected that from him,’ as it always does when Ash explains stuff.  
“Ash, I want to tell you something,” she pauses and waits for him to nod,” these ‘self-destructive tendencies,’ are not there to work against you, they are how your body learned to cope with things, you need to understand that. The work needs to come in when finding better coping mechanisms, and teaching yourself to stop relying on those ones, okay?”  
They work through it, Ash tries harder this time, listens more, doesn't act like he already knows everything. Like Eiji had asked him to, many times before. At the end she gives him homework to track symptoms and triggers of his ptsd, and also what he does to work through those feelings. Next time she wants to go over what he’s written, and how to work with the triggers written, and how to begin effective coping strategies  
When Ash walks out of the building, he’s met with his favorite hug from his favorite person. Ash sinks into the heat.  
“How was it?” Eiji looks up at him with big and cautious eyes, Ash gives a small smile.  
“It went alright, I have homework to do this week though.” Eiji hugs him tighter  
“That’s really good, do you wanna talk about it?” Ash thinks about it for a second, then shakes his head.  
“Thanks, it means a lot, but maybe later.”  
On the walk home from the train station, they pick up the food for tonight. Unfortunately, for Ash, Tex-Mex does indeed not exist in Japan, or at least around where they lived, so he can’t receive his glorious white people taco night, so instead they get some takoyaki, and stuff to make sodium loaded, yet delicious, instant ramen. For dessert, a new tub of matcha ice cream.  
“Jesus fuck we’re going to have to work this off,” Ash hears Eiji mutter, and bursts out laughing in the middle of the isle in the convini. Eiji sputters, ears turning dangerously red from embarrassment, Ash notices the people looking at them from the corner of their eyes, Ash doesn’t care. He’s past the need to pay attention to people who watch him from afar, he’s safe. That realization crashes into him at a thousand miles per hour on the spot, in a convini, he’s safe, they’re safe. Eiji notices how Ash stopped laughing and now is boring a hole into a ramen packet on the shelf. Ash knows his own eyes are wide in disbelief.  
“You alright?” Eiji’s question snaps Ash out of his fervor and is met with Ash’s smile that takes up his full face. Ash feels his eyes get teary, he's just so damn happy.  
“I’m so alright, painfully alright,” Ash can hardly stop himself from tackling Eiji on the spot. For once in his life, weird looks were the least of his problems.  
Once back home they change immediately into a pair of sweats and sweatshirt each, it’s self care night after all. On their couch, watching some zombie movie that Eiji’s too invested in for his own good, Ash runs his hand through Eiji’s growing hair. He vowed he wasn’t going to cut it because it was something Ash touched, Ash almost combusted from that alone. Eiji hums in approval as Ash begins to rake through the locks, they get longer each time Ash does this, it was long enough for Ash to make braids. Eiji wasn’t paying attention to him though, his eyes were glued on the screen, and Ash, being the clingy bitch he is, isn’t going to have that. He abandons Eiji's hair, and takes his rightful place with his head in Eiji’s lap. This gets Eiji to look away from the screen now, making eye contact with Ash as he looks down. Ash smiles again, for like the billionth time today. Today has been good to him, and he isn’t complaining. Some hair spills over Eiji’s shoulder when he leans down just a bit to kiss Ash’s nose, it's perfect. Ash feels something in that moment like he did in the convini: visceral and scalding hot realization. This time it’s the same realization over and over again of just how much he loves Eiji. The ever-lasting and unwavering kind of love, the kind where Ash would follow Eiji to the ends of the earth, even if he knew it meant his death. Ash would never die if it meant Eiji was left to deal with it by himself, though. He wasn’t that selfish, not when it came to Eiji, his own liberation was Eiji’s death sentence. He knew he was valued and precious to him, and never, in a million years, would he leave him alone. He probably wouldn’t be able to even if Eiji wanted him to. Eiji was Ash’s everything. However, the only thing he told to the man gazing into his burning eyes, was,  
“You’re too pretty, you’re too nice.”  
Eiji exhales with a small laugh.  
“I think I should be the one to say that.”  
Ash brings his hand to Eiji’s cheek, lost in his everything, lost in Eiji’s everything until he finds the edge of the earth. Eiji.  
The next morning isn’t blessed with the slowness of the previous one, but instead Eiji dragging Ash out of bed and getting Ash to go run off all the “damn calories,” exact quote of Eiji-mother-fucking-Okumura. Although the day isn’t as emotion-filled as the last, or as impactful, Ash finds himself falling in love with Eiji everyday no matter what. Eiji. Eiji. Eiji.  
“Ash, Ash, Ash,” Eiji says next to him, in a teasing matter. Oh. Had he said that last part aloud? Fuck it. Ash steals a chaste moment of the world, and kisses Eiji at the park they’re resting at. Eiji’s ears and cheeks are red again, Ash pushes his cold water bottle against them.  
“Don’t overheat, babe,” and Ash can almost see a puff of steam escape from Eiji, uh-oh. He broke him. Eiji covers his face with his hands.  
“Are you trying to kill me?” Eiji manages to squeeze out. Ash pats his head.  
“Me? Never.”  
“Hmph,” Eiji stands and continues the trail they were on, leaving Ash behind.  
“Nooo, wait!” Ash rushes after him  
Eiji does, he waits like Ash would for an eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this because i am sad and gay and i just want them to be HAPPY is that a crime? i did this instead of homework lolol, my heart hurts... everything hurts.... its been two years... also sorry for the lack of italics and emphasis, i had all of that grammatical spice in there, but then stupid ao3 rich text... i saw it and cried and decided it was not worth it. maybe next time lol


End file.
